So Let Me Get This Straight: If Black Kids Come to a School, the School is Going to Automatically Fail?

It’s over 50 years since the historic Supreme Court vote that ushered integration into public schools into the public school system of United States of America. Yet in 2018 rich white people are still up in arms about the mere mention of allocating seats in their segregated schools for minority children. They didn’t want our children then, and they don’t want them now.

“The concern is not that kids with different ethnicities are going to be schooled with our [so-called] ‘rich white kids,’ ” said Abramson. “Rather, we want to make sure our kids are not forced into failing schools as a byproduct of the DOE’s push to increase diversity.”

Abramson , a rich white parent, shares his spin on the issue he and other parents have with diversifying their lily-white-with-specks-of-Asians school that is ironically named after Booker T. Washington, a famous Black leader. Go figure.

Can I just be really transparent, ya’ll? I’m so sick of some white people and their fake concerns! The truth that is that diversity and integration is the issue, one that School Chancellor Richard Carranza, me, and many others who watched that viral School meeting video see clearly! So let me get this clear: If Black kids come to a school, the school is automatically going to fail?

I told one of my students about this whole debate and she, a little Black girl said, “they are trying to say that we are not smart. They’re being racist and, honestly, after hearing all of this, even if I had the chance to go to one of ‘their’ schools, I wouldn’t want to. Nobody wants to be somewhere where they aren’t welcome.”

I agree with my student one hundred and fifty percent! As much as we like to act like integration exists, it doesn’t. Not really. Not in New York City or Long Island public schools. Blacks weren’t welcomed with open arms when Brown vs. Board of Education was passed. Whites — rich and poor — made it very clear that they didn’t want Black children being taught in the same school as their children. Integration was forced and whites have found every which way to keep segregation legally alive. I teach in a school where there is not one White child — even with the massive amounts of gentrification going on in the neighborhood where my school is located.

What we saw on the video that Chancellor Carranza tweeted leaves little room for interpretation. It is what it is. I wonder if charter schools are any more diversified than regular public schools. I mean they are public schools, right? I personally don’t care for integration. It seems to me that we’ve integrated ourselves straight into oblivion.

If New York truly wants to integrate their schools, why are real estate zoning laws the determining factor of where a child is eligible to attend school? If New York truly wants to integrate their schools, why not start by diversifying the teaching staff at all schools? These rich, white people get to live their posh lives of luxury where just a few stops on the L is gross poverty that they never care or have to witness, much less interact with.

There’s a disdain for Black people in our school system. We are under-represented as teachers, in gifted and talented programs, in A.P. classes — I mean, c’mon! I’m not making any of this up and none of it is new. Segregation in New York public schools has been going on forever, so why is everybody acting so shocked by what that parent in the video said? And when they finally pass what Chancellor Carranza is proposing, who’s going to be there to protect those Black students — those modern day Ruby Bridges and Little Rock Nine, those Buffalo Soldiers who will open the way for integration in those schools — from the potentially fatal backlash? That’s where my head is where this whole issue is concerned. What say you?

We are parents, teachers, students and community members who are strong in our belief that all children, especially those historically underserved by the traditional system, have the right to attend excellent schools.

Alina Adams is a New York City mom of 2 school-age children (and one off to college!), who happens to be a New York Times best-selling author. She’s made it her mission to help all parents find the best school for their child.

Vivett Dukes teaches public school in Queens and confronts the challenges faced by students and teachers of color, as well as exposing the school-to-prison pipeline.